Crystallization effects in oxygen annealed Ta2O5 thin films on Si

High temperature annealing effect on structure, optical property and laser-induced damage threshold of Ta2O5 films

“…It displays that the as-deposited film and the film annealed at 873 K are both amorphous. After annealed at 1073 K, as XRD result shows, the amorphous Ta 2 O 5 film crystallizes to hexagonal phase [18], so the temperature of the phase transition is between 873 and 1073 K. The orthorhombic phase of Ta 2 O 5 appears when the annealing temperature increases to 1273 K, which is consistent with previous results [18,19]. It indicates that when annealed at low temperature ( 673 K), the modifiability of atoms in films is limited in amorphous structure, while at high temperature (!873 K), the case is different and more complicated that amorphous Ta 2 O 5 transforms to crystal Ta 2 O 5 , which is hexagonal phase at 1073 K and orthorhombic phase at 1273 K, respectively.…”

Heat treatment induced structural and optical properties of rf magnetron sputtered tantalum oxide films

“…Huang and Chu obtained amorphous films at substrate temperature of 773 K, while the addition of water vapor during the rf sputtering leads to crystalline films [14]. Dimitrova et al observed amorphous to crystalline phase transition when annealed at temperatures between 873 K and 1123 K in rf magnetron sputtered films [15]. Thus it is worth noting that in the present investigation polycrystalline films of tantalum oxide were obtained when annealed at low temperature of 573 K and crystallinity of the films improved with the increase of annealing temperature to 973 K. The grain size of the films was evaluated from the Scherrer's relation.…”

Optical properties and microstructure of Ta2O5 thin films prepared by ion assisted electron beam evaporation

“…Due to its large dielectric constant, Ta 2 O 5 has been practically the most promising capacitor material to be used in the near future in the microelectronics and integrated micro-technologies, which is being hotly studied [1,2] . On the other hand, for its good environment stability and high refractive index, Ta 2 O 5 thin films have attracted great attention in the optical fields, such as waveguides [3] , dielectric mirrors [4] , narrow-band interference filters [5] , and etc.…”

“…On the other hand, for its good environment stability and high refractive index, Ta 2 O 5 thin films have attracted great attention in the optical fields, such as waveguides [3] , dielectric mirrors [4] , narrow-band interference filters [5] , and etc. There are numerous methods for the fabrication of Ta 2 O 5 thin films, electron beam evaporation [2,3,6,7] , Radio-frequency sputtering [1] , ion beam sputtering [4,5,8,9] , DC magnetron sputtering [10] , pulse laser deposition [11] , and etc. The properties of Ta 2 O 5 thin films strongly depend on the fabrication methods and fabrication conditions, more work is still needed to clarify the relation between a specific technological process and the properties of Ta 2 O 5 thin films.…”